CORDIS Archive
This page has been archived. It will no longer be updated.
This article provides a profile of one of the components of the French National Host. INRIA, the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique, has its headquarters in the eastern suburbs of Paris. On 1 October 1996 the InfoWin project had a project meeting there. At the end of that meeting, Olivier Muron (Director of Research Promotion and Technology Transfer) gave us an overview of INRIA's work in the area of advanced data communications. The project also had an opportunity to question him further about the role of INRIA in this area.
Several INRIA research teams are working on technology linked to the Internet or to future developments of the Internet. Their efforts have received recognition world wide. The Institute also participates in technology transfer in connection with the Internet, especially in co-operation with the technology companies stemming from INRIA. Last but not least, the Institute develops experiments on the Information Highways with various partners.
INRIA played a leading role in the establishment of the Internet in France. As early as 1985, INRIA undertook to develop the French network, following CNAM (the Conservatoire National des Arts et MÈtiers). Later on, the Institute was one of the founders of the GIP Renater research network and a driving force in the setting up of regional networks.
INRIA created its own multimedia presentation on the Internet as early as 1993. The purpose of this Web site, dedicated to scientific communication is to distribute, on a large scale, information about the Institute and its research in computer science and automatic control. In particular, INRIA's research and activity reports are made available.
An object-oriented DBMS from O2 Technology is used to create documents in HTML format for the Web as well as in LaTeX format for paper editions.
Furthermore, at the request of the Ministry in charge of Industry, INRIA is responsible for the distribution of all Internet domain names in France. Over 2000 organisations thus obtained their own set of addresses through NIC-France.
INRIA plays a important role in the mastery of the Internet technologies and their further evolution. Its project teams are involved in the following areas:
The RODEO project in Sophia-Antipolis is working on protocol definition and experimentation for standardised and high-speed networks. With the advent of high-speed networks, the bandwidth of the physical layer no longer represents a bottleneck. But distributed multimedia applications present various requirements which are not necessarily met by the services offered by standard communication protocols - or at least by the quality of service supplied by these protocols.
The RODEO project is involved in a "protocol compilation" approach, in which a communication protocol adapted to a given application is automatically generated from the application's specifications.
INRIA also takes part in the ongoing international effort on the evolution of Internet (IP) protocols, such as how to deal with the shortage in network addresses, with mobile computers, and so on.
INRIA has started co-operation with Bull within the Dyade Economic Interest Group on the new version of the Internet protocols, IPv6. The subjects covered include:
The crucial problem of TCP/IP network performance requires a massive effort in simulation, modelling and performance evaluation. Among the possible research directions, noteworthy ones are:
The tools developed at INRIA for modelling the random behaviour of networks account very satisfactorily for the load repartition fluctuations that are one of the main characteristics of TCP/IP networks (see the MEVAL project in Rocquencourt and the MISTRAL project in Sophia Antipolis).
The research projects who are involved in modelling work in close co-operation with the protocol research teams. Indeed, developed models can be used to forecast the influence of "evolved" protocols on network performance.
INRIA developed the IVS (INRIA Video conferencing System), a system for audio/video conferencing using a standard workstation connected to the Internet. This research (part of the RODEO project) is carried out in particular within European Community projects.
INRIA has been participating in the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) work group on RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol) development since 1992. Successive versions of RTP have been evaluated, which eventually led to the official standardisation of RTP by IETF on 25 January 1996. RTP is a protocol for the transmission of real-time audio and video data over the Internet. It was immediately adopted by numerous companies. Major applications are in Internet telephony and video conferencing.
Numerous research problems remain open. However, the availability of real-time communication tools on such a fast-growing infrastructure as the Internet opens up entirely new perspectives in communication.
The problem here is to devise tools to realise and easily edit sophisticated WWW documents. In addition, such documents have to be structured in such a way as to adapt them to co-operative work. A corresponding work environment must also be developed.
The OPERA project in Grenoble is concerned with electronic documentation (technical documents, hypertext, multimedia and so on). Document models are studied which account at the same time for the documents' logical or abstract organisation, their graphical display and their contents. Editing techniques based on these models are also designed by the project. A structured document editor called Thot was developed. This editor serves as a basis for experimentation on the notion of "active document", the embedding of complex physical structures within logical structures and the transformations of logical structures among others. OPERA is also developing a prototype editorial workshop around a co-operative editing application called Alliance and an authoring system for the World Wide Web.
Programming languages are being adapted to keep up with network distribution, which leads to the notion of mobile code. Two problems arise: security, and the semantics of mobility.
Applets are an example of mobile code, following the principle that programs also are documents and can thus be accessed, downloaded and displayed, just like any other type of document. In this framework, the CRISTAL project (at INRIA Rocquencourt) developed MMM, a Web browser written in Caml, which provides a secure and powerful applet mechanism (Caml is a strongly typed functional language developed at INRIA). In addition, MMM uses a cryptographic signature system which proves to the user that the applet supplier has actually run the security tests.
The PARA project in Rocquencourt is working on the semantic foundations of mobility by developing a calculus for mobile agents called join-calculus and inspired by the works of Milner (p-calculus), Cardelli (Obliq) and Pierce-Turner (Pict). Implementation is in progress.
The ergonomic aspects of the various services offered on the Internet are crucial in terms of diffusion, in particular for the mass audience. Among these, the PSYCHO-ERGO project (at Rocquencourt) is interested in the following themes:
INRIA has a systematic technology transfer policy. This follows three traditional channels: research contracts, product licences and creation of companies. Several companies stemming from INRIA do part of their business on Internet related technology. INRIA holds shares in three of these companies:
Ilog
develops Ilog Web Catalog. This electronic cataloguing solution, based on the C++ Ilog software components, can be used to set up catalogues rapidly. Multimedia elements extracted from the database are automatically integrated.
O2 Technology
proposes the O2 Web package which can be used in particular for HTML automatic or customised dynamic generation.
SIMULOG
maintains a significant commercial activity in the area of software tools for TCP/IP network performance evaluation.
Several other companies, created by former INRIA researchers, are involved in the Internet:
GRIF
was created by former INRIA researchers. It is now a European leader in SGML structured editors, the future very powerful tools of editors on the Net.
GC-Tech/EDELWEB
is specialised in applications for Internet electronic commerce.
EUnet
is the first European private commercial Internet provider, offering more than 300 points of access in 41 countries.
In 1995, INRIA was chosen to host the European branch of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in co-operation with MIT for the USA. Major European user organisations, such as Aerospatiale, Dassault, Havas, Iberdrola, Michelin and Reed Elsevier, participate in the Consortium, together with computer industry and telecommunication operators. Now the W3 Consortium has around 150 members, 40% of whom are European. The Consortium is self-financed by its members. Its purpose is:
The European team is working on the evolution of HTML (style sheets, internationalisation) and real-time audio/video. Prototype software is being developed, such as Amaya, an authoring system for the Web.
On 1 September 1996, Jean-François Abramatic, Director of Development at INRIA, was appointed Chairman of the W3C. On 10 September 1996, Keio University, Japan joined MIT and INRIA in hosting the W3C across the world.
INRIA is committed to placing its Internet skills at the disposal of French operators that are interested in European Community experimental projects. A proposal to do this was first submitted to the ACTS (Advanced Communication Technologies and Services) programme, within which framework INRIA now participates in the French National Host.
The INRIA proposal was later approved by the Ministry of Post, Telecommunications and Space, in a call for proposals concerning the development of new services and materials in the fall of 1994. INRIA is involved in 20 projects in this framework.
Due to its regional distribution, INRIA also participates in Information highway projects supported by the local authorities of each of the five regions in which INRIA is present. Other projects concern infrastructure, mass diffusion information systems (press, culture, administrative information and so on) and industry. See below for a description of a few of the selected projects.
The Proximity Teleservices and Urban Mobility project aims at offering new urban mobility services to city inhabitants and enterprises. The project is presented by the Public Authority for the Planning of the New City of St Quentin en Yvelines, in association with the Praxitèle programme. Praxitèle is a consortium in which INRIA is associated with CGEA, Dassault Automatisme and Telecommunications, EDF, Renault and INRETS. Its goal is to demonstrate the socio-economic interest of a novel urban transport system which is both public and individualised - the self-service use of small electric vehicles.
The purpose of the Grenoble Network Initiative (GNI) is to encourage the development of innovative network applications and services for health, education and electronic commerce. INRIA is one of the founding members of GNI. It plays a central role in the life of this structure which was created in October 1994 by information technology professionals from the Grenoble region, i.e. operators, industry, research institutions and universities, with the support of the local public authorities.
INRIA Sophia Antipolis plays an important role in the projects presented by IMeT (Mediterranean Institute for Teleactivities). The activities in question are, in particular, the exchange and sharing of spatial images, in connection with the Club High Tech led by the CCI (Chamber of Commerce and Industry), and the exchange of computerised data inside an enterprise group, in relation with the Aerospatiale site in Cannes.
The ImMéDiAt project (Remote Medical Imaging through ATM) allows a specialist to make a diagnosis from a distance by looking at images transmitted over an ATM network. It includes eight partners: OST, Syseca, Thomson TBS, CERIUM (Centre Européen de Recherche en Imagerie à Usage Médical), regional health centre hospitals at Rennes and Saint-Brieuc, ENSTB (École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne), and IRISA-INRIA Rennes. In this regard, the projects TEMIS and ADP focus on research on the hierarchical compression of image data, and the specifications of communications protocols for ATM networks.
The MulticablE Project proposed by Lyonnaise Communications combines two aspects. Its purpose is to conduct experiments on the cable networks in Ile de France using a new infrastructure.
INRIA also acts as an expert in network architecture. Its research teams (ALGO and REFLECS) are also working on network technology and the integration of real-time (audio and video) channels.
INRIA is also experimenting on telecommuting with this new infrastructure.
Aquarelle is a project presented by the Ministry of Culture and the French-Speaking Community, the Bibliothèque de France and INRIA and ERCIM (European Research Consortium for Informatics and applied Mathematics). Its purpose is to develop information and computer applications services in the area of access to digitised representations of the world's cultural heritage, independently of their location. As a European project, Aquarelle, coordinated by INRIA, gathers more than 20 partners from four countries (cultural institutions, publishers, information technology industry and research institutions).
Etel (Edition télématique) is the name of the future electronic newspaper of the Ouest-France group. Etel will provide new services using a thematic approach, including access to archives, press review, etc. Ouest-France and its subsidiary TC, the Regional Council of Brittany, O2 Technology and INRIA are partners in this project.
The Galeries Lafayette and Compagnie Bancaire groups asked INRIA to participate in a project called l'échangeur for a centre for experimentation with and demonstration of electronic commerce. The project is open to all operators in the area of commerce that are interested in improving the competitiveness of their business, creating new services and looking for new advantages in a competitive market. Its objectives are to provide every participant with a demonstration tool for information technology applied to commerce. The PSYCHO-ERGO team is defining and implementing observation and experimentation techniques of behaviour of potential users.
In the project SToRIA, SGS-Thomson is planning to test the intensive use of data networks internally (the Intranet concept) between its R&D centres. SGS-Thomson will experiment, in an industrial environment, with software tools developed at INRIA: cooperative publishing (the OPERA team), audio and video conferencing (the RODEO and SIRAC teams), knowledge information server (the SHERPA team).
Participating in these advanced telecommunication network experiments on a national as well as a European and international level, presents an opportunity for INRIA to validate and augment the value of its research and to meet the needs of users, while also opening up new research directions.
Descriptions in English of INRIA projects ADP, ALGO, CRISTAL, MEVAL, MISTRAL, OPERA, PARA, PSYCHOERGO, REFLECS, RODEO and TEMIS are at http://www.inria.fr/Equipes
/{project-name}-eng.html - so for example RODEO is at
http://www.inria.fr/Equipes/RODEO-eng.html
By Paul Bacsich, Sheffield Hallam University, 01.11.1996